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This was SuperNova

‘Tomorrow is unstoppable’, that’s what it was all about during the first edition of SuperNova. Because we were hosting an edition of D.A.T.E., themed innovation, we decided to drop by SuperNova.

On the first two days of D.A.T.E. we visited the SuperNova Conference. Today’s gamechangers where invited to share their thoughts and visions on technology, business concepts and the creative ventures of tomorrow. Keynote speakers where: Ray Kurzweil, Biz Stone, Seth Godin, Neil Harbisson and Tim Harford. These are the ones that impressed us.

The man that knows marketing and leadership and sold a lot of books spreading his visions on those topics. It resulted into 18 best-selling books and he’s not nearly finished yet. During his presentation he talked about how marketing works and how a lot of companies interpret this completely wrong. “You don’t just shout at people, you don’t change things like that.” is one of the quotes he used, because people don’t just listen to you just because you are shouting something in their ears.

Due to the evolution in tech, the world of marketing changes as well. Now everyone on earth is your customer, but also your concurrent is what he said. That is why, according to Seth, you should “be comfortable to cater the weirdo”. Make sure you are remarkable and the one and only in your niche market. Make yourself unique and dare to take risks. Around the end of his presentation he projected the Zulu word ‘sawubona’ on the screen. It means ‘I see you’ and is one of the most important things in marketing. Give people the feeling they are seen and recognized and you have a customer for life.

Known best for being the co-founder of Twitter, Medium and Jelly. Worked as an employee for Google and recently sold Jelly to Pinterest. Now he is back where it all began: Twitter, and with a different mindset than when he left the company.

Being interviewed he talked about the beginning of Twitter and their responsibility around fake news on the platform. In the beginning Twitter was just a small platform, invented by him and his friends. They just wanted to create a platform where people could tell what they where doing, so they knew what their friends where up to. But the platform gained popularity fast. The platform was actually just created by the people who used the service. For example the possibility to retweet posts was integrated into the platform because they saw people doing it themselves.

At first they didn’t feel responsible for fake news on the platform, but coming back to Twitter he changed his mind about that. Now they try to identify fake news as fast as they can, but it is harder than it looks. To the question how the audience could know their idea was a good one, he answered: “An idea that you can’t get out of your head. When you are emotionally attached to the idea.”.

You probably won’t miss this man when he passes you on the street because he has something that most people don’t have: an antenna implanted into his skull. Neil was born colorblind and used to want to ignore the fact that there where colors, but he couldn’t because people just wouldn’t shut up about it. That’s why he decided to implant a antenna into his skull, so he could hear colors. Since every color has its own light frequency and music its own sound frequency it’s possible to hear color frequencies by using his antenna.

Besides hearing colors he also has a Wi-Fi connection. Therefore it is possible for 6 people around the world to send him colors – and thus sounds – all the time. Apparently he also had a Morse code tooth installed. Someone else – on the other side of the world – did the same. Which means they can communicate through Bluetooth (got it?) with each other. ‘cause Every time Neil clicks his teeth together, the other Bluetooth-toothed person feels the same click in his mouth. And the other way around, of course.

He sees a bright future for the so-called Artificial Sence and thinks that more and more people will adapt to it.

Besides listening to some inspirational speakers, we also attended the Tech Fair where over 80 game-changing companies where presented. On Saturday and Sunday we were free to wander around the SuperNova Expedition which showed installations and demos in different themes, such as food, mobility, sports, fashion and sustainability. Altogether some very inspiring days in which we learned a lot.